Brick in the Blog Wall

Word gets around that I’m a blogger. Either that or I talk too much. Probably both. At a recent birthday festivus for the restofus, a gentleman who shares a first name with me struck up a conversation about blog reading. He started naming his favorites, each time expressing surprise that I as a self-proclaimed blogologist had never read any of his favorites. I was half-surprised as well, but shit – we all know the blog world is like a neverending bookstore, you’ve got all sorts of sections, so maybe lately I haven’t been browsing the Ancient Greece & Cooking section, but I’m definitely wandering around the store. At this same party, I finally met the man behind EggertOnline who also blogs, incidentally. He had some interesting things to tell me about having a comments section using flash. I might consider that, since Haloscan is so temperamental.

I like to keep everyone, including myself abreast (abreast, there’s a word that will increase my site hits) to reports released by UN Agencies. Since last week I’ve been browsing the UN Habitat report about the world’s cities. Here is a listing of the entire report, and here are my personal reflections:

– Guess you already knew, but there it is again: jobs moved from cities like NYC, Chicago, and Detroit moved to Mexico over the past decade. But they’ve now left Mexico as well and headed to China. Basically anyone anywhere who is psyched now about a new factory moving to their city, should enjoy it for the few years it’s there, because if they find cheaper conditions in Antarctica.. they’re off!

– Cities are becoming even more multicultural, with greater possibilities for communities to retain their ethnic/cultural identities, and city spaces that are exclusive to certain cultures. You might call them ghettos, but I see them as exciting places to experience other cultures, eat fun food, and shop at reasonable prices.

– Buenos Aries got screwed by the process known as de-industrialization. Guess everyone’s in the service industry from now on. May I take your order?

– With 60% of the world’s population living in cities by 2030, I guess it will be easier to get “away from it all”, just leave the city you live in and you should be all alone.

– City planners and politicians who allow their urban centers to quickly expand with no regard for infrastructure like sanitation, public transport, and green spaces, should be charged with crimes against humanity. (what.. too preachy?)

– By 2015, Lagos, Nigeria will be the third largest city on earth, with around a cool 24 million people. Note to self: definitely a good place to meet some new people.

– Lets not talk about Mexico City.

In case it’s not clear, I’d like to express my love for cities. If I can, I shall try to visit all the largest ones in the world before I’m through. I just worry about us city folk and our future.

There’s a good diagram of personal knowledge management that Mathemagenic posted, I think it’s nice. I can never make my own diagrams, but this one depicts what my blog life kind of looks like: a series of conversations, relations, and artifacts between me, some old friends, some new friends, and a whole lot of strangers. And lets not forget the occasional heckler to tell me to go fuck myself. Which is free advice, I guess.

What I have been able to do recently is throw new and old photos onto my photoblog, for your viewing pleasure today – my bedroom/musicroom.